A wide variety of absorbent structures designed to be efficient for the absorption of body fluids such as blood, urine, menses, and the like, are known. Disposable products of this type generally comprise some sort of fluid-permeable topsheet material, an absorbent core, and a fluid-impermeable backsheet material.
Heretofore, such absorbent structures have been prepared using, for example, topsheet materials prepared from woven, nonwoven, or porous formed-film polyethylene or polypropylene materials. Backsheet materials typically comprise flexible polyethylene sheets. Absorbent core materials typically comprise wood pulp fibers or wood pulp fibers in combination with absorbent gelling materials.
One aspect of such sanitary products which has recently been considered is their disposability. Although such products largely comprise materials which would be expected ultimately to degrade, and although products of this type contribute only a very small percentage of the total solid waste materials generated by consumers each year, nevertheless, there is currently a perceived need to devise such disposable products from materials which degrade relatively quickly, thereby lessening their bulk.
The practice of the present invention draws upon the well-known teachings of the surgical arts to meet the aforesaid disposability issue. In particular, those aspects of the surgical arts relating to sutures and hemostats are employed in the practice of this invention to provide desirable topsheet, backsheet and absorbent core materials.
More particularly, the present invention employs the types of materials used by surgeons in synthetic absorbable sutures to provide topsheet and backsheet materials which can be used to fashion diapers, sanitary napkins, pantiliners, and the like. Such suture materials, especially those based on glycolic acid and/or lactic acid, as described hereinafter, are designed to degrade by simple hydrolysis, e.g., in landfills. The oxidized celluloses employed as absorbent cores herein are also well-known from surgical arts as absorbent hemostatic materials. Such materials are also broken down by natural biological processes, thereby enhancing their disposability.
In short, the present invention uses conventional knowledge from the medical arts relating to absorbable, hydrolyzable and biodegradable surgical materials, and reapplies such materials in an unconventional way to prepare disposable sanitary products for use by the consumer.